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micro atx for overclocking p4?

C

CanisEstInVia

Senior member
I just bought a p4 1.6a from newegg's refurb and am now faced with the choice of what mobo to get for it. I want to go micro for this new rig of mine, but will that severely limit my overclocking ability? I read that the voltage can't be adjusted. What can I expect to oc at without this option? What about oc'ing the ram; do micro bios' lack in this area as well? I have mushkin high performance ddr 2100.

As for the mobo itself, which would be better? I don't need onboard video as I will be running a geforce 3 in the agp slot.

Asus P4B533 - intel 845gl chipset ($112)
or
Asus P4S333 - sis645 chipset ($77)?

Thanks so much for your input. I'm a newbie to the Intel side so I greatly appreciate your help.
 
First thing, do not buy the "845gl" chipset for overclocking - it does not support the 533 mhz FSB and will not give good overclocking results. I was looking for exactly the same sort of system you describe to overclock a 1.8a P4 in. Due to integrated video, most of the candidate boards I looked at were based on the 845G chipset. The m-atx 845E models were simply too expensive to be practical. I've heard good things about the SIS chipsets but I prefer to stick with Intel so I narrowed my options considerably.

The biggest problem I had with picking an 845g m-ATX mainboard is a lack of overall information on overclocking ability. Some places have information, but it conflicts with info from other sites. In the end, I was torn between the Asus P4B533-VM or the Abit BG7-M. From what I read, most of the m-ATX versions of full size boards lack the BIOS settings required to overclock (or at least the important ones like a 4:5 cpu/mem ratio) even if the full size versions of the same boards have them. I researched for a solid week before deciding against the Micro-ATX route I had planned originally.

Another problem I had with the Micro-ATX form factor is power supply strength. The two cheapest Inwin m-atx towers come with a 180 watt full size ATX supply that can be upgraded with a full size supply. However, the combined cost ends up higher than just buying premium full size case. I was also concerned with air flow in the smaller case - I wanted a quiet PC and the smaller case would require higher cooling fan speeds and more noise to keep temps reasonable.

In the end, here is the configuration I settled on from newegg:

P4 1.8a Retail
Abit BG7 Mainboard <flashed to latest 6/2002 BIOS prior to install>
256 mb Mushkin PC3000 DDR RAM (should have probably gone Samsung but the Mushkin is good stuff)
Seagate 80gb Baracuda IV hard drive
Antec SX630 Mini tower case <purchased locally, was OOS at Newegg)
2 x Zalman 80mm Temp Controlled Fans
Radeon 8500 64 mb "LE" version ($87, ATI part - comes with 250/275 clock settings)
Cyberdrive 32x burner

The machine is nearly silent, the only part I can hear is the fan on the video board and the max temp it has reached under load after 12 hours of 100% CPU utilization was 53 degrees C @ 2.4 ghz at stock voltage ( I got lucky with a good chip ). The case is small (aprox 18" tall, 8" wide) but solid with room for 1x each front and back case fans with plenty of air space inside. The Antec SX 630/635 is very compact, solid and quiet though proably 4" taller than the Inwin m-ATX models. I really like the m-ATX form factor, but in the end for overclocking I found it was not going to work out. Perhaps in the future, mainboard manufacturers will start moving toward smaller, legacy-free boards that are as full featured as their full size cousins.

There is hope in the near future - I understand that a new version of the 845g chipset is on the way that will officially support DDR 333 memory. If you wait a bit for these boards to hit market, you will find the Micro-ATX board that does what you want and can figure out an acceptable micro-ATX case/power supply solution in the meantime.

Good luck to you either way - hope I gave you a nugget or two of good info!
 
Thanks for the reply yuppiejr. Are you saying the p4b533 can NOT overclock? I checked over the site which I was going to buy from, and I'm thinking they might have the wrong info for the motherboard. Newegg and Mwave say that the p4b533 is actually the 845g chipset. If the board is in fact 845g, it will be a good performer?

directron <---- where I plan on buying from
mwave <----- says its 845g

Switching topics some, you mentioned most mATX were lacking cpu/mem ratio settings. In an archived thread, I dug this up...
by Plester:
I have an Asus P4S333-M and it is a great board in every way, it's only shortcoming is a lack of voltage adjustments other than doing the wire trick (which is simple enough if you just drop a wire into the socket holes - takes 5 minutes). it overclocks like a champ w/ 1mhz fsb increments and lots of DDR tweakablity.
Click to expand...
At the risk of sounding like a newb, does "ddr tweakability" refer to the ratio settings you mentioned? While I'm at it, I don't quite understand the process of overclocking ram and what those numbers mean 😱.
 
Actually the P4B 533-V model (ATX) is a very good overclocking board, the problem seems to be with the BIOS on the -VM (Micro-ATX) model which does not include overclocking options (4:5 cpu to memory ratio, etc..). I'm not sure why they gimped the micro board, perhaps to justify the much higher asking price for the full size model?

Both versions of the P4B533 (V or VM) are 845G based.

Is the P4S333-M a micro ATX board? I had not examined it closely as I was sticking with Intel chipsets only so I can't comment on this board's abilities. I believe the DDR tweakability he is talking about refers to is the various settings for the RAM stick itself (CAS, etc..). I believe that the SIS 645 DX / 648 chipset natively supports the DDR 333 spec so the 4:5 ratio I'm talking about which is not available on all 845g boards should be present regardless of the board used.

In the case of the 845G, there is no official support for the DDR/333 (PC 2700)setting which requires the 4:5 CPU:MEMORY bus speed ratio. Not all motherboard manufacturers include a ratio to allow the DDR/333 (PC 2700) standard which is why I had to look long and hard at my options to find one that would fit the bill. Unfortunatly the terminology gets kind of complicated at this point and I'm not sure if my explanation will hurt or help. Here's my layman's understanding of how this works:

The memory will operate at the selected ratio compared to the selected clockspeed, x 2 because it's DDR:

P4 1.8a - 18x100, 1:1 = 100:100, mem is DDR so it's running at 200 mhz (PC1600)
P4 2.4a - 18x133, 1:1 = 133:133, mem is DDR so it's running at 266 mhz (PC 2100)
P4 2.4a - 18x133, 4:5 = 133:166, mem is DDR so it's running at 333 mhz (PC 2700)

Hopefully that helps a little. Let me know if there are any other questions you have and I'll do my best to answer, I'm pretty new at this myself so I'm hoping someone chimes in if I'm blatently wrong in any of my information. 😉
 
Hey yuppie, I downloaded the manuals for the two asus' I'm looking at. The 533 does not have the 4:5 ratio, but the s333 does. Why is the s333 so much cheaper besides not having onboard video?...Anyways, I'll probly get the s333 now.

Before I let you off, I'd like to go over the cpu/mem freq one last time. With your current setup, the p4 @ 145x18 with 4:5 ratio will mean your cpu is at 145 while your memory freq is at 181.25? Then x2 since its ddr... =362.5? Can it run with half increments?

Thanks for all your help so far. I'm learning a lot here.
 
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